Archive for 2007

Everyone knows Wikipedia is a great place to find information about nearly any subject. Few people, however, realize the same people behind Wikipedia have a great resource for free media, including photo, video and audio content.

Wikimedia is organized in a similar fashion to its text-only brethren. Content from the site can be used in your website, blog, brochure, or other medium free of charge.

Do a little exploring and you’re sure to find some very interesting photos you can file away and find a use for later.

These days it’s nearly impossible to go an entire day without being caught on video, whether you’re a celebrity or not. The UK is saturated with cameras, boasting more than four million CCTV connected cameras.

Most people are not even safe from prying eyes at work. I was able to catch a co-worker on video once with a well-placed phone camera, and the results were stunning.

This relatively unknown individual has now been transformed into a YouTube celebrity of sorts, all without his knowledge or consent. I think the moral of the story is clear: if you’re camera shy, it’s best to just stay home under the covers.

Through November 26, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) will be handing out two XO laptops per donation – one to a child in a developing country, and one to a child of your choice. The program is called Give 1, Get 1.

Who can resist when Masi Oka is the spokesman?

Additionally, T-Mobile is rewarding donors with one year of HotSpot access, available in about 8,500 locations in the U.S., such as Starbucks, Borders, airports, and Amtrak stations.

Sick of the current real estate trends? It might be time to turn your eye to the virtual real estate market of Second Life.

For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life, it isn’t a game, per se. It’s an online virtual universe where you can live out an alternate fantasy life — a virtual online universe with millions of registered users.

I have been reading some very interesting things about the brain lately, particularly regarding memory. Memory has always been puzzling to me. Why is it I can remember every Futurama episode ever made, hundreds of IP addresses, and countless CSS tricks, but not all the names of my forty-some cousins?

There have been a lot of rumors about Google releasing a mobile phone. Well folks – they’re not gonna do it, they’re just going to give away the software for you to create your own phone. I’m calling mine the _Phone.

Available as of yesterday, programmers can download Google’s SDK for Android. Android is Google’s open source mobile phone operating system. This is probably a very good strategic move for Google – remove obstacles for accessing its applications, making it very, very easy to work within Google’s burgeoning framework of applications from Google Docs to Google Maps….

I won’t argue that it’s OK to break the law. But I would also say it’s not OK to break the law in order to catch people breaking the law. The RIAA, everyone’s favorite association (racketeering group), has gone to great lengths in the past to prosecute copyright violators.

Lately, however, they are stooping to unheard of depths, even pushing legislation that would pull funding from colleges who don’t comply with their strong arm tactics. This would mean schools that decide not to get in bed with the RIAA would lose federal funding, and important grants that often help pay for low income kids to attend higher education.

If this legislation becomes law, and rampant copyright violations continue, what will RIAA do then? Maybe build some sort of P2P downloader-zapping death star.

There have been a few nerds who have attained prominent positions in politics, but you rarely hear about the flip side of the coin: the nerd vote.

Chris Knight of North Carolina is clearly vying for the nerd vote with his campaign commercial.

It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, tries to capture the nerd vote in the 2008 presidential race. Without Al Gore running I fear this growing and misunderstood voter group will once again be ignored. [Gizmodo]